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Tips for mounting blocks VS a mantle

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 zimpara 24 Apr 2016
Any good tips to mount blocks/ ledges? They are my nightmare and end up forearm smearing and getting grit rashed forearms, and then belly flopping onto ledge.
1
 alan moore 24 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:

Sounds like you've got it sussed.
 springfall2008 24 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:

Have you tried the regular mantleshelf? Both hands on the ledge, one foot up and rock over onto the foot and stand up?
 humptydumpty 24 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:

The full-belly smear may feel unsophisticated, but the massive friction provided by that amount of contact with the rock is hard to argue with. Obviously this technique is less useful on narrow ledges, but perhaps a shoulder smear could work.
 Jon Stewart 24 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:

Go bouldering. You don't get far bouldering on grit without learning how to mantel.

Burbage South boulders is good for this sort of thing. Do the Cobra's head for starters, but there are loads of mantel problems around. Up at the North, Roof Goof is classic, there's another one near there through a cave thing (helpful?!), plus Wobble Block has a good finish. A bit harder, but Safe Bet finishes with a tasty mantel. Then head over to the West and do Sick. Once you've got that little circuit dialled, you should be able to grovel onto any ledge a trad route throws at you.
In reply to Jon Stewart:

I sent The Beast at Stanage North recently, which was 'tasty', also the routes on Mothers Pet at Mother Cap can put even the most robust characters off beached whale mantles for life....
 Jon Stewart 24 Apr 2016
In reply to paul_in_cumbria:

> I sent The Beast at Stanage North recently,

Nice one! I got a hernia just looking at it.

> also the routes on Mothers Pet at Mother Cap can put even the most robust characters off beached whale mantles for life....

Yeah! I've only done the easy ones, the full frontal attack is for experienced whalers only...
 rgold 25 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:
Technique involving a high foot and/or a heel hook can help, but at the end of the day mantling is a matter of strength. BITD, mantling was actually a subsport of bouldering, but by and large the inclination to seek out and find hard mantles is a thing of the distant past, and in my experience modern boulderers, although they have far exceeded the previous generations in both ability and inventiveness, are not in general as strong as previous generations at mantling.

Here's some hard-earned lessons from a dinosaur from the olden times of hard mantling:

There's a progression to getting stronger at mantling. Depending on how strong you already are, you might not start at the beginning.

Of course, the first thing to do is dips. If you can do three sets of ten, that is plenty. Add weight. You're going for strength, not endurance. Dips will be more relevant if you do them with your palms facing out, but be careful because it is easier to get hurt this way. (And the dipping bars may need to be somewhat closer together than some commercial ones. The best thing is a set of parallel bars, as the width between them can be adjusted.)

Dips by themselves will never quite do it, because they are done with the elbows up and the hardest part of almost all mantles is going from elbows down to elbows up. To approach that strength requirement, you need to do muscle-ups, which is a gymnastics motion that starts with a pullup and transitions to a dip. Assuming you can already do dips, the transition from elbows down to elbows up is the primary difficulty in the muscle up.

Muscle-ups can be done on a bar or on a set of rings. In both cases, you will need to start with a false grip, which is essentially the orientation your hands need to be when you are supporting above the bar/rings. When below the bar/rings, the hands have to be rotated so that your weight is at the very bottom of the palm, near the wrist.

The first strength component of a muscle-up is to be able to do a relatively high pull-up. You won't be able to lean over and rotate your elbows up if you haven't pulled high enough to begin with. With a bar, this means pulling the bar to nipple-level at the chest.

Having pulled high enough, the rest of the motion involves leaning forward and pivoting the elbows up. There are a few ways to work on this. The first is by doing "negatives." Use a stool or bench to get in a support position above the rings/bar and then lower through the muscle-up, focusing especially on a very slow rotation of the elbows from up to down.

After that, there are three good options. One is to use a counterweight as is done for fingerboarding to allow the muscle-up to be done with (perhaps at first considerably less) than body weight. Another, if you have a set of adjustable rings or a doorway chinning bar is to set the bar at a level that allows you to lean over and press up, and then gradually, in very small increments, raise the bar/rings until you are doing a proper muscle-up. Finally, you can use a lat pull-down machine, loaded appropriately, and perform the muscle-up motion on that. I'd note that since body orientation is part of the muscle-up, using the lat pull-down machine exclusively does not seem to be optimally effective.

If you do muscle-ups on a bar, you will quickly learn that a kipping motion will rock you from elbows-down to elbows up. You can't do this motion on the rock, but you have something that is usually better, namely a place to brace your feet. With feet braced, you can sink down as you might for a dyno and then spring up. This makes the muscle-up much easier and you'll practically fly over the top.

You'll get stronger and better (and will be less likely to get hurt) if you work on your muscle-ups symmetrically---don't throw one elbow up, support, and then throw up the other. However, when climbing the one-after-the-other motion is often mandatory, and in hard mantles you may have to complete the entire motion without ever getting one of your elbows up. This requires even more pressing strength as well as good pulling strength with the elbow-down arm. So the best final exercise, I think, is "mantle pushups." Find a nice ledge with a smooth but friction-y wall below. Position one hand in mantle position, elbow-up, and the other hand right next to it in pulling position. Using your legs against the smooth wall (you will quickly learn optimal positioning), press up to full-extenion mantle position, lower back to the starting position, and repeat. Naturally, you have to do this on both sides.

You can google muscle-up and false grip and find various bits of advice and pictures. The cross-fitters have adopted muscle-ups as one of the feats of strength they aspire to, so there is plenty of information out there about them.
Post edited at 03:20
 deacondeacon 25 Apr 2016
In reply to rgold:
That's seems to be some really good advice, but perhaps more aimed at someone a little more advanced than Zimpara. My elbows are screaming "help" just reading it.
Looking at his grades I reckon Zimpara would do well to just getting used to climbing mantles, and doing lots of them. Bouldering is great for this and Jons list is spot on.

One common mistake I've seen when people are learning to mantle is to put your leading foot as far away as possible. You want it as close to the lip as possible and also as close to you as is comfortable. This is so that once you start to muscle up you will come into balance quicker. Concentrate on keeping your groin as close to the rock as possible. Once you come into balance turn the leading hand round so that you're palming down with fingers towards you, turn that heel into a toe and press it out. When this works smoothly it can feel effortless and is really satisfying.

If you feel that you're really, really struggling you can learn a lot from getting it Sussed climbing out of a swimming pool.
 rgold 25 Apr 2016
In reply to deacondeacon:

You have a point---I didn't check any grades. And indeed, some mantles are primarily stepping up with low hands on sloping rock (with footholds that disappear as you lean over) and so are mostly a matter of technique.

As for those mantles that do involve pressing strength, I think the usual argument about strength-training applies, which is that one can progress in much smaller well-controlled increments then is possible in climbing situations, and without the anxiety that sometimes forces you to do things that will hurt.

That said, I think you are right that there is a danger of initiating or aggravating elbow tendonitis, usually medial epicondylitis (golfer's elbow). This comes from the compression of the forearm muscle when using a false grip at the high point of the pullup. But an analogous danger exists if one tries mantles on real rock without the requisite conditioning, and the ability to increase loads in small increments (and, for that matter, just stop if anything begins to hurt) makes training arguably a safer alternative to just climbing.

I think if there is concern about elbow tendonitis, then maybe the progression I mentioned is not ideal, and rather than starting with "negatives," one should build up the physical structures by doing the muscle-up motions on a lat pulldown machine with an appropriately moderate level of resistance.
In reply to Jon Stewart:


Top tip, don't wear shorts and vest!

> Nice one! I got a hernia just looking at it.

> Yeah! I've only done the easy ones, the full frontal attack is for experienced whalers only...

 jkarran 25 Apr 2016
In reply to zimpara:
> Any good tips to mount blocks/ ledges? They are my nightmare and end up forearm smearing and getting grit rashed forearms, and then belly flopping onto ledge.

Nailed it!

More helpfully: grab ledge, find best holds, throw right foot up onto it and scoot it toward you a bit so the knee is bent, hop left foot up wall to get body rolled over locked right shoulder/forearm, turn the left hand fingers down the wall, thumb pointing out left, push down rocking over the bent leg and stand up. Obviously this can be done with the left foot/hand first just as well.
jk
Post edited at 11:02

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